1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to an organic-inorganic hybrid material. More particularly, an organic-inorganic hybrid material and a hybrid film derived therefrom and methods preparing the same by hybrid process without adding any chelating agent are disclosed.
2. Description of Related Art
Organic-inorganic hybrid materials possess not only the advantages of organic materials, such as processability and flexibility, but also the advantages of inorganic materials, like high mechanical strength and high thermal properties, and hence are studied internationally and are widely applied in various fields. In general, a hybrid material is prepared by mixing an organic material and an inorganic material, which are associated by molecular forces therebetween, such as, for example, London-van der Waals force or hydrogen bonding, on a nanometer scale. Therefore, the hybrid material is formed without phase separation in the macroscopic view, and further combines the properties of the organic material and the inorganic material.
Due to the poor thermal properties of organic materials, organic-inorganic hybrid materials cannot be prepared in a conventional ceramic-manufacturing process. Instead, a sol-gel process is usually adopted to fabricate organic-inorganic hybrid materials. Sol-gel process including a hydrolysis step and a condensation step performed at a low temperature. Consequently, organic materials can be introduced into inorganic materials without degradation.
The organic-inorganic hybrid materials prepared by the sol-gel process, however, are easily influenced by surrounding conditions, such as, for instance, temperature or humidity. As a result, the organic-inorganic hybrid materials tend to age, which decreases the shelf life thereof. Additionally, the organic-inorganic hybrid materials with a nanometer dimension incline to aggregate with one another. To stabilize the properties and the sizes of the organic-inorganic hybrid materials, chelating agents are required in preparing the same. The chelating agents are, for example, methacrylic acid, acetic acid, and acetyl acetone.
On the other hand, the solid content of the organic-inorganic hybrid materials prepared by the sol-gel process is usually around 20% to 30%, of which the viscosity is not high enough for preparing a thick hybrid film. Unfortunately, raising the solid content by increasing reaction time and reactant concentrations directly results in gelation of the organic-inorganic hybrid materials. Moreover, phase separation occurs if the viscosity of the organic-inorganic hybrid materials is increased by adding another polymer solution with higher viscosity.